Author: Ophelia Benson

  • BioLogos to scientists: stop advocating

    “It is important for scientists to emphasize that uncertainty is central to science.” Does that apply to religion too?

  • “The rising tide of Islamophobia”

    “How long before there are calls to ban Muslims from naming their sons after their beloved prophet?”

  • US Catholics critical of pope

    Yet they have “confidence in the Vatican to make changes to prevent abuse in the future.” Odd.

  • Ireland: Evangelicals demand “freedom”

    Of conscience and religion, which means not being legally obliged to serve gay people in public facilities.

  • Diversity in action

    Aygül Özkan said crosses and hijabs don’t belong in classrooms – and the Christian parties went berserk.

  • Urgent re-education

    And another thing. Where I come from, diversity training means something along the lines of learning not to express stupid dislike of people for absurd reasons such as race sex class sexual orientation foreignness and the like. But at the Foreign Office it apparently means more than that.

    All the staff involved in producing the memo are to be sent on “urgent diversity training”…”Although [the memo] was intended only for internal use, it was ill-judged, naive and disrespectful of some key tenets of the Catholic faith.”

    Clearly this urgent diversity training will be for the purpose of teaching staff to respect all key tenets of the Catholic faith – so “diversity” now means not just different kinds of people but different kinds of beliefs and “tenets,” and the underlying assumption is that they all have to be respected.

    But – but – but some ideas are just stupid and wrong. Some of the tenets of the Catholic church are just fictitious and wrong but others of them are harmful and wicked. People shouldn’t be trained to respect them. I can see the FO wanting narrowly vocational training in when to say what and to whom, although I’m not sure I can see extending that to internal memos – but I know I can’t see extending it to what to think, which is what this kind of “diversity training” amounts to.

  • What’s up in there?

    My friend Claire went to Denver and she saw something very nice there.

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  • Ghana: Jehovah’s Witnesses abandon child aged 5

    The child had anaemia, received blood transfusion over parents’ protest, so they ditched him.

  • Greg Laden on Boobquake

    If there is a well publicized skeptical reaction each time major stupidness is uttered, we won’t need to quake sexual organs in future.

  • The FO simply adores the pope

    Ruth Gledhill in The Times tells us that

    The civil servant in charge of the Pope’s visit to Britain has been suspended and is to be investigated for misconduct after a memo lampooning the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church was leaked to the press.

    All the staff involved in producing the memo are to be sent on “urgent diversity training”

    Urgent diversity training? Meaning what? They’ll be trained not to have contempt for contemptible beliefs? How will that be accomplished, exactly? Heavy drugging? Waterboarding?

    A Foreign Office spokesman said: “As we have made clear publicly, it was a foolish document that did not in any way reflect FCO views. Although it was intended only for internal use, it was ill-judged, naive and disrespectful of some key tenets of the Catholic faith. It has caused great offence…

    Why do key tenets of the Catholic faith have to be respected? They are false after all – and the ones that were mocked in the memo are also harmful – so respect should not be mandated. I do realize it’s not the Foreign Office’s job to make the Catholic church a better institution, but it also shouldn’t be its job to lick Ratzinger’s boots.

    The FCO very much regrets this incident and is deeply sorry for the offence which it has caused. We strongly value the close and productive relationship between the UK Government and the Holy See and look forward to deepening this further with the visit of Pope Benedict to the UK later this year.

    Does it? Why? Why does the Foreign Office strongly value the close and productive relationship between the UK Government and the Holy See? What is there to value in that? The “Holy See” is a horrible secretive coercive all-male obscurantist organization that shields fugitives from justice (Cardinal Bernard Law) and conceals decade upon decade of child rape until the last rag has been stripped away. The “Holy See” tells Africans not to use condoms during an Aids epidemic, it tells everyone everywhere not to use any birth control at all, it works tirelessly to prevent women from getting abortions and thus to deprive all women of childbearing age of a secure sense that they own their own lives. The “Holy See” stinks – it is repulsive to see the Foreign Office crawling to it in this slavish way.

  • FO staff sent for “urgent diversity training”

    Because that pope memo was “disrespectful of some key tenets of the Catholic faith.”

  • Hitchens v the pope

    Bloggers respond to the idea of busting the pope.

  • The “pedophile’s paradise”

    Alaska Natives accuse the Catholic church of using their remote villages as “dumping grounds” for child-molesting priests.

  • Oklahoma abortion law: no exceptions

    Mandatory sonogram, which could mean rape with a wand, plus mandatory lecture.

  • Three girls is three too many

    A pretty story.

    Three sisters have suffered serious facial burns after two unidentified men on a motorbike threw acid at them in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. The sisters, aged between 14 and 20 years old, were attacked as they walked from Kalat city to Pandarani village…The police named the girls as Fatima Bibi, 20, Saima Bibi, 16 and Sakina Bibi, 14…Two weeks ago, an unknown group – the Baloch Ghairatmand Group (the Honourable Baloch Group) – claimed responsibility for a similar attack on two women in a market in Dalbandin city. The group had warned women to wear the hijab, the traditional Muslim headscarf, and not to visit markets unaccompanied by men from their families.

    So in other words these three girls had acid thrown in their faces because they existed, because they were girls, because they went outside, because they went somewhere, because they were visible, because they walked and talked and breathed, because there were three of them. They had acid thrown in their faces because nothing. They had acid thrown in their faces because two thugs felt like throwing acid on some women, and the Bibi sisters were there. “Honourable” indeed – give me a fucking break.

  • Pakistan: acid attack on three sisters

    The sisters, aged between 14 and 20 years old, were attacked as they walked from Kalat city to Pandarani village.

  • PZ on Pigliucci and Romano and “tone”

    Tone matters, because too many have been insufficiently fierce in their criticism of pious excuses for sloppy thinking.

  • Street “preacher” arrested for saying homosexuality is sin

    Christian campaigners have expressed alarm that the Public Order Act is being used to curb religious free speech.

  • Vatican politics

    “The Holy See cannot get to the bottom of this matter. It would have to criticize itself as an authority.”

  • Tories reach out to Christian fundamentalists

    Among the Tory faithful, there is a growing feeling that Christian values are under attack.